MUSEUM EVENT CELEBRATES CHRISTMAS SPIRIT

02 Dec MUSEUM EVENT CELEBRATES CHRISTMAS SPIRIT

Telluride Historical Museum celebrates the holiday the old fashioned way, at Schmid Ranch.

Beth Batcheller, circa 1910, pictured here on the roof of her Tomboy home. Batcheller was known to deliver holiday gifts to all the children who lived at Tomboy.

On Christmas Day, 1908, Harriet Fish Backus, the “Tomboy Bride,” awoke to a gift that would certainly turn the most modern San Juan citizen Christmas-colored with envy: “sparkling diamonds,” from the surface of ten-foot deep snow.

Meanwhile, outside her cabin at Tomboy, equipped with snow shoes, a fleece-lined jacket, fur hat, and, of best of all, a sack of toys slung over her back, “The Spirit of Christmas” labored from shack to shack without discrimination, the annual ritual of Beth Batchellor, Harriet’s best friend.

On Saturday, December 8, the Telluride Historical Museum honors the “Spirit of Christmas” at its annual celebration at Schmid Ranch. The gathering takes place from 12 – 4 p.m.

There, at the ranch – a centennial farm that has remained in the Schmid family since the 1880s – the celebration will include horse-drawn carriage rides, a bonfire, hot chocolate, cowboy coffee, wreath making, Santa Claus and gifts for children. Guests can even cut down their own Blue Spruce tree. 

The fourth annual Old Fashioned Christmas Celebration at Schmid Ranch feels like a Norman Rockwell painting.

“It’s truly a sincere celebration of the holiday spirit,” said Erica Kinias, executive director, Telluride Historical Museum.

Elks Club Christmas, 1910

The event is free, thanks to donations at the event itself and the generosity of sponsors such as Hotel Telluride, New Sheridan Chop House & Hotel, Peaks Resort and Spa, the Schmid family, and Wilkinson Public Library.

Kinias encourages everyone to wear warm clothes and bring a rope to get your tree home, plus your own mug for the hot beverages.

And the museum is not completely ignoring the commercial side of the holiday season. December is Noel Month at the musem’s store, where shoppers can play old-fashioned games to win 10 – 50% discounts.

Gifts exchanged amongst the first Telluriders were likely “gloves; warm stockings; hats; home baked breads and treats; paper dolls; balls; and simple games like jacks and marbles,” explained Kinias.  Today, the museum offers shoppers contemporary items – beer steins, belt buckles, travel mugs, ceramic tiles, and pendants by Lisa Issenberg and knobs – that display images from the past. There are also matted and framed images from museum archives.

The Telluride Historical Museum also carries great books including local titles: “Tomboy Bride,” “One Man’s West” and “Rudy’s View,”  as well as DVDs documenting Telluride’s past – “We Skied It!” and “YX Factor” – plus our town’s fictional past in “Scrapple,” a movie about a pig as fetching as “Babe.”

For more information about the Old Fashioned Christmas event or about Noel Month, visit the museum virtually or make the trip to the top of Fir St.

As for “sparkling diamonds,” this Christmas, the museum can’t make any promises – although, historically speaking, at least we know chances are good.